In recent years, the automobile manufactures have added an additional braking light positioned in the center of the rear windowshield thereby positioned such added braking light above the standard braking lights and in the direct line-of-sight of the driver directly behind the vehicle. Henceforth, the quickness in observing a slowing or stopping vehicle was increased since the additional brake light was essentially placed in the direct line-of-sight of the rearward vehicle. A can be appreciated, to add an additional braking light to the rear of a motorcycle or other open motorized recreational vehicle in the direct line-of-sight of a trailing vehicle would thus be advantageous. Therefore, several attempts have been made to include a braking light on the rear of a helmet.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,353,008, to Eikenberry et al., entitled "HEADGEAR WITH SAFETY LIGHT" discloses a motorcycle helmet with a brake light. The brake light is turned on via a receiver which detects an RF signal from a transmitter located on the motorcycle.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,760,373, to Reilly, entitled "MOTORCYCLE HELMET CONTAINING AN AUTOMATIC BRAKE LIGHT" discloses a helmet having a backward facing warning light which shines when the motorcycle's brake pedal is depressed. A transmitter with an encoder located on the motorcycle communicates with a receiver with a decoder. Further provided is a code card to guarantee both the encoder settings and the decoder switch settings are identical.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,2449,586, to Slarve, entitled "SAFETY HELMET" discloses a helmet having an auxiliary brake lamp secured thereto and connected via a quick detachable electrical connector in parallel with the brake lamp of the motorcycle.
As can be readily seen, in general, the prior helmet brake light systems are in some way directly connected to the motorcycle's electrical system. Since the present invention utilizes a light intensity detector to detect the illumination of the rear brake light of the motorcycle, the helmet brake light system is not in any way electrically coupled to the motorcycles electrical system.
While each of the above helmet brake light systems function as desired, none of them have a brake light system for helmets which includes a helmet, a helmet brake light coupled to the rear of the helmet, a light intensity detector coupled in close proximity to the motorcycle's brake light and an electrical cable electrically coupled to the helmet brake light and the light intensity detector wherein when the motorcycle's brake light illuminates, the light intensity detector detects the illumination of the motorcycle's brake light and activates the helmet brake light.
Other patents in the art include U.S. Pat. No. 4,559,516, to Schott et al., entitled "HELMET WITH TURN SIGNAL" which discloses a helmet having turn signal indicators activated by head tilt switches response to momentary tilting of the wearer's head. U.S. Pat. No. 4,195,328, to Harris, Jr., entitled "OPEN VEHICLE LIGHTING SYSTEM UTILIZING DETACHABLE VEHICLE OPERATOR HELMET MOUNTED LIGHT", and U.S. Pat. No. 3,720,918, to Perl, entitled "VEHICLE INDICATOR", are directed to various light indicators for helmets.
As will be seen more fully below, the present invention is substantially different in structure, methodology and approach from that of the prior helmet brake light systems.